The former Chelsea, PSG and Real Madrid coach reveals how he kept players such as Ibrahimovic and Ronaldo stimulated in training, how he has got Derby purring and why Ancelotti’s team talks would take him by surprise

Paul Clement has taken Derby County to third in the Championship on the back of one defeat in 16 league matches.
Photograph: Fabio De Paola for the Guardian

Five framed shirts hang on the far wall of the manager’s office, just over Paul Clement’s shoulder as he sits at his desk. The tributes scrawled by Cristiano Ronaldo over the No7 and Sergio Ramos on his No4 are in the Real Madrid players’ native tongues even if the sentiments – obrigado, gracias – need no interpretation. David Beckham thanks his compatriot “for everything, even the dodgy balls in the warm-up” on the No32 of Paris Saint-Germain while Zlatan Ibrahimovic, that lovable rogue, cannot resist a playful dig even when paying homage in marker pen. “To a great person and an excellent coach,” he wrote, “even if you are English.”

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Only the No2 on the left of the gallery is script free, an England shirt worn by Dave Clement, Paul’s father, still spattered with mud from one of the right-back’s five caps earned almost four decades ago. The room at Derby County’s plush Moor Farm training complex is dotted with other memorabilia, from a photograph of a delighted Ligue 1-winning PSG squad with Clement at the centre of the throng, or one of him hoisting Real’s 10th European Cup. Then there is the former PE teacher from Sutton and Zinedine Zidane clasping the Copa del Rey. Clement clearly made an impression over six glittering years as assistant to Carlo Ancelotti at Stamford Bridge, Parc des Princes and the Bernabéu.

The memories are everywhere. “I’m still in contact with a few,” he says. “John Terry at Chelsea. Beckham, Zlatan, Cristiano. Xabi Alonso and Álvaro Arbeloa. Just text contact, really. ‘How you doing?’ ‘Good to see you doing well.’ But Carlo is really the one I speak to most. He was quite a mentor and is still threatening to come up here and have a nose around, and he will, I’m sure. He always joked the day I stopped being his assistant he’d have to pack it all in and retire. Or he’d maybe become my No2, which wouldn’t be bad, though I’m sure he’ll be back in the game at the end of the season, in a big club in one of the big leagues. He never said he wanted me to go but, at the same time, he knew sooner or later I had to crack out on my own. And he thought I had the skills to do this job.”

Clement is attempting to justify that faith. A highly regarded coach who had attracted tentative interest from two Premier League clubs in 2013 when his time at PSG was drawing to a close, and other top-flight inquiries post-Madrid, has taken the plunge in the east Midlands. Derby offered him the head coach’s position and, more significantly perhaps, the chance “to help shape how we run this club”, according to the new owner, Mel Morris. The local businessman made good suggested the 43-year-old “can be our Sir Alex Ferguson”. The £20m outlay sanctioned for nine signings over the summer – a spend to rival plenty of Premier League clubs – inflated expectations further and, after a difficult period of adjustment, this team have found some rhythm. Tuesday’s 4-0 victory over Bristol City, illuminated by a hat-trick from Tom Ince, left them with a solitary defeat from 16 Championship games. They hover only two points off the top.

Paul Clement grips the European Cup with Carlo Ancelotti, right, after Real Madrid win the title for the 10th time with victory over Atlético Madrid in 2014. Photograph: Carl Recine/Action Images

The division anticipated a title challenge but Derby appear fitter than last season, are defensively sound and, given the steady upturn in form and enviable depth to their squad, can approach the festive schedule with optimism. “I wanted to give myself the best opportunity to be successful,” says Clement. “There wasn’t anything else for me that touched what Derby offered because of the potential, the ambition, at this club. They had come close over the last two years, a [last-minute] play-off final loss and then slipping out of the top six on the final day last season, so I knew there was a core of good players here. Steve McClaren established a style of play that was very positive and offensive, so I wasn’t having to go from one end of the spectrum to the other, which would have taken a lot of time. That helped.

“The new owner has been fantastically supportive and passionate about his club. The chief executive, Sam Rush, has been instrumental in changing a lot behind the scenes. Then there’s the tradition of the club, twice champions in the 1970s. The fan-base, with 30,000 people at the iPro stadium every other week: one in 10 of a city of about 300,000 people. That’s unbelievable. So, so, so many positives. OK, we had that tricky start but, given nine new players, a new owner, a new backroom staff and new head coach, it would have been luck if it had just clicked overnight. I spoke to Carlo back then and he just told me: ‘Keep doing your job. Get out there, work with the players, try and improve them. You’re going to be fine.’ That was reassuring to hear.

“And I was seeing encouraging signs. I was disappointed after we lost in the last minute to Leeds before the [September] international break after four draws. So I had a really serious sit-down with the players after that, going through it all, and we decided we were on the right path; that it was only a matter of tweaking little things; that the principles were sound. Since then, we’ve not looked back. We’ve had to be patient because we’ve had teams like Middlesbrough and Burnley come to our place and try to stop us playing. But the players are buying into what we want, and they are responding.”

Paul Clement says of his coaching methods at Derby: ‘A lot of the exercises I used at previous clubs I do now with these players.’ Photograph: Fabio De Paola for the Guardian

Yet this is a Championship squad, albeit one of obvious talent, at a club who have spent only one of the last 14 campaigns in the top flight. Instinct suggests Clement’s approach to training must be very different these days to his time at Cobham, Camp des Loges or Ciudad Real Madrid. After all, how much drilling did lavish talents such as Didier Drogba, Ibrahimovic or Ronaldo actually require? “But it was always a question of: ‘How do we challenge them? How do we make training stimulating and enjoyable?’ They really needed that, but they also needed structure and boundaries. Actually, the best players respect that and accept it. They want that structure to their drills. They don’t want it to be a free-for-all, but they demand organisation and professionalism.

“A lot of what we did at those clubs was about reducing time and space. It’s too easy for the best players if you give them time and space, so reduce both and they have to think, act and move quicker. They’re the challenges we gave them. Take a player like Cristiano: it was about giving him the right environment to be able to flourish and express himself. He was a team player. He understood he couldn’t do things on his own. He needed that collective framework in order to get the best out of himself as well. In that respect, there’s no difference with the techniques when coaching in the Championship. Sure, there’s a certain recalibration in terms of the level, but the objectives are the same. So a lot of the exercises I used at previous clubs I do now with these players.” The accolade of senior first-team coach of the year, collected at the FA coaching awards this month, suggests he is doing plenty right.

Clement’s time at Fulham, where he was head of education and welfare at the academy, as well as at Chelsea and Real, influenced his choices of backroom staff. Their number include Karl Halabi, formerly at Craven Cottage and Stamford Bridge, as head of physical performance and the tactical analyst, Naiara Pérez Díaz, from Real. The new seven-strong opposition analysis department is headed by David Burke, previously director of football operations at Brighton, and also includes Joaquin Gómez, once Oscar García’s assistant at the Amex stadium. There is Dr Bryan English, formerly of Chelsea, as chief medical officer and John Peacock, twice a European Championship-winning coach of the England Under-17s, as No2. Throw in Kevin Phillips and Pascal Zuberbühler as first-team coaches and the revamp has been extensive.

Paul Clement keeps a close eye on Lucas and David Beckham, centre, as they train with Paris Saint-Germain in 2013. Photograph: Franck Fife/AFP/Getty Images

But the onus remains on Clement to lead and, in that sense, he is grateful to have learned from the best. “I was able to see first hand how Carlo operated, from how he worked with the players, dealt with the politics, how he spoke to the media, and it was all invaluable,” he says. “He’d surprise me with how he dealt with things. I used to test myself when we went in at half-time, asking what I would do in certain scenarios and then watch how he addressed them, and he’d often do the complete opposite to my instincts. It could be when the team had been poor, the attitude not great, and I’d be tempted to tear into them. But he’d be at the back of the room gathering his thoughts, then tapping on the tactics board: ‘This is what I want to see second half … ’ Clear. Simple. Boom. Go out and do it. So calm.

“And it usually worked. In six years I could count the times he lost his rag on the fingers of one hand. To be honest, I only lost it twice: once at Chelsea, when he told me to take a step back. Fair enough. And once at Paris Saint-Germain, when he wasn’t even in the room. So I don’t think he even heard about that one. I didn’t think that was my role. I was there to support Carlo. But that’s different now. Now it’s on me to weigh things up, work out how to react, and be strong.

“I’ve had to stand on my own two feet throughout. First at Chelsea [when the interim manager Guus Hiddink initially promoted him from the academy setup in 2009] … that was probably the most uncomfortable time for me, making that transition from youth to senior coach, and into that dressing room. Then in Paris and Madrid, with really high-calibre players but working in another language as well. I was constantly being tested. Coming through that gave me a lot of belief that I could do this. I’ve learned plenty. I know some things. I don’t know everything. But I’ll always be honest: it’s up to me to prove I can do this job.”